A clean bill of health for Oshawa’s air

Results from the province’s air monitoring station in Oshawa show the city’s air, for the most part, is pretty clean.

Ontario has 40 air quality index (AQI) monitoring stations across the province. Durham Region’s sole station is located at Durham College.

While many of the stations monitor for six pollutants dangerous to human health (ozone, fine particulate matter, nitrogen dioxide, carbon monoxide, sulphur dioxide, total reduced sulphur compounds), Oshawa’s station does not monitor the latter three as they have been determined to be at “background levels” and no longer require monitoring in the city, according to a staff report.

For the three that are monitored, all are determined to be at average levels, with only ozone being found to be slightly above Canadian standards. Particulate matter was found to be well below the country’s norm. While nitrogen dioxide levels were labelled as average, there is no Canadian standard set to compare.